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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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A Plain Talk 
About The Theater 






y\ RE^^ HERRICK JOHNSON^, D. D. 



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CHICAGO : 

F. H. REVELL, 148 and 150 Madison Street, 

Publisher of Evangelical Literature. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by 

F. H. REVELL, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



A PLAIN TALK 

ABOUT THE THEATER. 






The demands of Christianity have been construed 
as an insult to intelligence. It has been sought to 
make the claims of Christian faith appear as an 
unwarranted encroachment upon the domain of reason. 
And multitudes have believed that the religion of Christ 
called for a blind credulity and a surrender of intel- 
lectual freedom. A sad and wicked perversion of 
Grod's truth, and a blasphemous assumption of author- 
ity and power, seeking its intensest expression in the 
dogma of papal infallibility, have undoubtedly done 
much to warrant this belief. Men, on peril of eccle- 
siastical censure, or under threat of anathema, or in the 
very agonies of inquisitorial torment, have been forced 



4 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT TUK THEATER. 

to yield assent to that which their reason flatly con- 
tradicted and their better nature abhorred. Even in 
freer lands than those of Torquemada and the Pope, 
the tyranny and intolerance of bigotry have made them- 
seNes felt in matters of religious belief, so that design- 
ing and unscrupulous men, in the professed interest of 
free thought and mental independence, have made use 
of these perversions of the spirit of Chi'istianity, and 
have sought, by them, to represent the entire evan-, 
gelical chui'ch as opposed to free investigation, and in 
attitude of open hostility to the use of reason. 

So far. however, is this from being true that the very 
opposite is true. Christianity invites investigation — 
demands it. Ignorance and darkness, superstition and 
credulity are not conditions of its best growth. Where 
intelligence is fullest orbed, there are its worthiest 
achievements and most enduring fi'uits. When it lirst 
came, it appealed confidently to its credentials. The 
Bereans are on record as more noble than those of 
Thessalonica, because, while they received the word 
of the apostles with all readiness of mind, they searched 
the Scriptures daily whether these things were so. 
We find Peter urging Christians to be always ready to 
give an answer to every man that asketh them a reason 



PROVE ALL THINGS. » 

of the hope that is in them. And Paul is heard 
enjoining men to 

PEOVE ALL THINGS, 

and to hold fast that which is good. The evidences 
of the Christian faith, not only, but the doctrines and 
convictions and prevailing opinions of the Church, 
are thus open to the freest investigation. An eiTor 
may be advocated with vehemence, zeal and plausi- 
bility. It may marshal to its support an array of 
great names. It may wear the venerableness of antiq- 
uity. The mere fact that it has been upheld by good 
men, ordained by councils, accepted by the Church, 
and thus invested with a kind of sacred authority, 
does not necessarily make it true; does not exempt it 
from free inquiry and most searching examination. 
This is one of the glories of Chi'istianity. As against 
superstitions and false religions, seeking to bar out free 
discussion, and making their mysteries and mummeries 
too sacred for the scrutiny of common eyes, Chiistian- 
ity says, " Prove all things.'* Put everything, even 
Christianity itself, to the test. Synods and councils 
are not infallible. Accept no opinion at the disregard 
of reason, or the suicide of it. By whomsoever held, 
or by whatsoever authority indorsed, examine it, test 



b A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

its soundness, prove its metal. If it bear the test, if 
it be found genuine, if it be the truth, then embrace 
it and hold it fast. This is the dictate alike of reason 
and of conscience. This is Christianity's law. 

CHURCH OPPOSED TO THE THEATER. 

Now, it is well knuwn that the Church is opposed to 
the theater. Theatrical performance on the public 
stage is condemned by the great mass of those who 
believe in the morals of the New Testament. The 
play-house is regarded as inimical to the best interests 
and truest moral welfare of the community. This is 
my own settled conviction. I am firm in the persua- 
sion that the theater is hostile to public virtue, and, 
as an institution, pernicious and corrupting in its 
influence. I believe that to many a young man, and, 
alas! to not a few young women, these garnished and 
glittering establishments, with their sensuous attrac- 
tions, have been gateways leading down to moral ruin 
and death. There are several of these establishments 
nightly open in every large city. Their entertain- 
ments are everywhere thrust upon the public notice. 
Flaming hand-bills on every street announce the brill- 
iant attractions. Their advertisements head the amuse- 



TESTIMONY AGAINST THE THEATER. i 

ment columns of every daily paper, and almost every 
issue of the press has editorial notice of their varied 
perfoimances. Beyond a doubt, hundreds of young 
men are drawn every night of the week to enter these 
play-houses. Hence, the fitness of the present discus- 
sion. I have entitled it, "A Plain Talk About; the 
Theater.'' I wish to make it just that. It would be 
easily possible to declaim, in a denunciatory way, and 
to till the hour with a great zeal and vehemence of talk 
about the dreadfulness of the influence of dramatic 
performance. But I invite you, rather, to a test with 
me of the worth of the stage in the light of history, 
of reason, of Christian morals and of common sense. 
If it bear the test. well. In the spirit of apostolic 
injunction, then let us hold fast to it, and give it oui- 
countenance and active support. But, if it fail in the 
test — if it prove to be bad instead of good — inimical 
to virtue, and a school of immorality, then let us have 
nothing whatever to do with the unclean thing. 

TESTIMONY AGAINST THE THEATEK. 

This is no new question. You are doubtless aware 
that the Church, with remarkable unanimity, in suc- 
cessive generations and in different branches, has pro- 



8 



A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



nounced against the stage. An English writer, in the 
time of Charles I, made " a catalogue of authorities 
against the stage, which contains almost every name of 
eminence in the heathen and Christian world. It com- 
prehends the united testimony of the Jewish and Chris- 
tian chui'ches; the deliberate acts of fifty- four ancient 
and modern general, national and provincial councils 
and synods, both of the Eastern and Western chui'ches ; 
the condemnatory sentence of seventy- one ancient 
fathers and 150 modern Catholic and Protestant writ- 
ers." Since that time the Christian Church has been 
just as clear and decisive in her convictions concerning 
the evils of the stage. Conferences, and assemblies, 
and synods, and associations, have alike, and succes- 
isively, and with one voice, pronounced against the 
theater. So has Plato, saying : " Plays raise the pas- 
sions and pervert the use of them, and of consequence 
are dangerous to morality." Aristotle and Tacitus, 
and Ovid, it is said, are on record to the same effect. 
Rousseau, resisting the intoduction of the stage into 
Geneva, calls it " a monument of luxury and eflfemi- 
nacy." Dr. eTohnson, speaking of Collier's " View of 
the Immorality of the English Stage," says: " The 
wise and pious caught the alarm, and the nation won- 



TESTIMONY AGAINST THE THEATER ^ 

dered that it had suffered irreligion and licentiousness 
to be taught openly at the public charge." Some of 
3-0U may be surprised to know that the American Con- 
gi*ess. soon after the Declaration of Independence, 
passed the following: 

Whereas, True religion and good morals are the only 
solid foundation of public liberty and happiness ; 

ResoUed, That it be and is liereb}' earnestly recommended 
to the several States, to take the most effectual measures for 
the encouragement thereof, and the suppression of theatrical 
entertainments, horse-racing, gaming and such other diver- 
sions as are productive of idleness, dissipation and a gen- 
eral depravity of principles and manners. 

Now, I admit that this mass of testimony, varied as 
it is from heathen and Christian sources, running 
tlii'ough the centuries, is not decisive of the case. No 
1 ist of authorities and catalogue of great names can be 
absolutely conclusive. Error has been cherished for 
centuries on other points, and it is barely possible that 
the great and good of all ages, and these numerous 
assemblages of men, whose special office it is to look 
after and promote the moral welfare of the community, 
have been mistaken. But. surely, the testimony against 
the stage, pronounced so long and with such unan- 
imity, is entitled to consideration. It certainly raises 



10 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE TIIEATEK. 

a doubt as to the moral effect of di^amatic entertain- 
ments. But, if, upon testing the matter and putting 
the theater to the proof, we find it to be a safe and 
healthful amusement, conducive to morality, and a 
school of instruction, then I grant that the long aiTay 
of adverse testimony amounts to nothing. The Chui'ch 
must acknowledge herself to have been mistaken, and, 
as a lover of morals, I must patronize and indorse 
what I have hitherto shunned and condemned. 

DEFENSE BY DAILY PRESS. 

It is to this that the ministry and the Chm-ch are 
occasionally summoned by articles in the daily press, 
and sometimes by writers more than ordinarily able, 
courteous and critical. With an evident desire to 
reform the more glaring abuses of the theater, and 
with manifest candor, they present views that chal- 
lenge consideration. Not long since, in a widely- 
circulated and most-respectable daily paper, I read 
one of these articles that opens thus: 

The stage is a serious affair. It is an institution. For good 
or for bad it must stand. It will live with civilization. It is 
a great popular pulpit. To the great mass of men and women 
it is, perhaps, the prominent social instructor. Theologians 
cannot destroy the st}«a:e, but their mad controversies with it 



DEFENSE BY DAILY PHESS. 



11 



have often buoyed up its pruriency. And this fact adroit 
purveyors very well understand. It is only necessary for a 
licentious and brazen playwright to put tilth on the boards, 
that critics and the pulpit shall denounce it into pecuniarj^ 
success. In this way the stage has reached that point of de"-- 
redation which Dr. Johnson deprecated and Byron deplored, 
and which Mr. Boucicault and the manager of Drury Lane 
have so latelj' avowed and indorsed in the columns of the 
London I'imes; yes, shamefully and defiantly indorsed ; their 
logic being that, as the standard drama will not draw, some- 
thing else must. And the mountebanks are not very particular 
what that "something else "shall be, provided always tj^at 
the public and the laws of the land will tolerate their disgrace- 
ful descent into the darkest ages of the drama, when the stage 
was a place for the orgies of satyrs, and its songs were the 
music of infernal sirens. 

Two leading faets are deducible from these premises : 
First— Religionists and moralists, who cannot destroyjhc 
stage, must go about to reform and sustain it with zeal and 
sense. These persons, to be dutiful, must admit what is true 
and denounce what is false about the drama, in a spirit of ser- 
ious, moderate, judicial criticism. ... As a public insti- 
tution the stage demands a cultivated and stern and liberal 
guardianship, and the fostering care of all whose posts are in 
the lines of education of any sort, whether religious or secular. 
I have quoted thus at length from this defender 
and advocate of the stage, to show yon the line of 
defense, to exhibit the extravagant claims, to point 



12 



A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



out the specious logic, to note the damaging admis- 
sions, and to make answer to this demand upon us for 
an effort to reform and sustain with a " cultivated 
guardianship " and a " fostering care "' what religionists 
and moralists have hitherto denounced and sought to 
destroy. To the proof, then. Let us put this matter 
to the test. I speak- as to wise men. Judge ye what 
I say. 

LAME LOGIC. 

Let me notice, in the fh'st place, two or three steps 
in the logic of this defense. " The stage is an insti- 
tution,'" it is said. " For good or bad, it must stand. 
Theologians cannot destroy it. Therefore, they must 
go about to sustain it with zeal and sense." The pro- 
tracted existence of an institution, then, is a reason for 
our sustaining it, good or bad. It only becomes us to 
make the best of it. But because warfare against an 
evil for centuries has not succeeded in destroying it, 
must we, hence, change face and advocate it. Who 
shall say — who has a right to say — how long an experi- 
ment is needed to prove that any given institution will 
live while civilization lasts? Himian slavery is an 
institution far older than the theater. Keligionists 
and moralists have opposed it. for centui'ies, and now 



LAME LOGIf. 



13 



it is dying out, and has about passed away all over the 
earth. But suppose they had stopped their opposi- 
tion, according to this lame logic, and sought to reform 
its evils only. Millions to-day, now free, would have 
sighed in bondage and moved to the clank of chains. 
The house of the strange woman is an " institution." 
Long before ^schylus and Sophocles wrote the lirst 
Greek tragedies, Solomon warned against this institu- 
tion as " the way to hell, going down to the chambers 
of death." It has existed ever since, and exists to- 
day. Shall we, therefore, say of it, " For good or bad 
it must stand. It will live with civilization. Theolo- 
gians cannot destroy it. That is proved. Hence, they 
must give it a stern guardianship and fostering care." 
No; this kind of logic would forever perpetuate 
tyranny and lust., and every persistent and giant 
wi'ong. We are to make no truce with evil. The 
only way to reform an evil is to destroy it. If the 
theater be a bad thing, whose essential tendencies are 
downward, and whose inevitable influence is demoral- 
izing, then its long life is no argument in its favor. 
Our ill- success in destroying it must not stop our 
effort. If it be an evil it will go by- and- by, or there 
is no truth in God's AYord. 



14 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

DENOUNCING FILTH INTO SUCCESS. 

Here is another specimen of the logic of this defense 
of the staoje: '' Controversies with the stao^e have 
buoyed up its pruriency. It is only necessary for a 
licentious and brazen playwright to put filth on the 
boards, that the critics and the pulpits shall denounce it 
int-o pecuniary success.*' Note, in the first place, the 
damaging confession that filth is put on the boards, 
and is given pecuniary success — and this is what the 
wi'iter calls " the great popular pulpit,'* " the promi- 
nent social instructor.'* And the success comes because 
the pulpit and moralists denounce the filth! Was 
there ever lamer logic ! As if the l^est way to get rid 
of filth is to let it alone! As if to stop denouncing 
evil is to kill it! Or, as if the pulpit's condemnation 
of the shameless and corrupting license of brazen 
playwrights makes the pulpit responsible for the dis- 
gi'aceful exhibitions that fill the treasui'ies of our 
theaters! This is the very ai'gmnent. " In this way," 
the writer goes on to say, " in this way, the stage has 
reached that point of degi-adation which Johnson 
deprecated and Byron deplored." and that " dis- 
graceful descent into the darkest ages of the drama, 
when the stage was the place for the orgies of satyrs, 



LAME LOGIC. 



15 



and its songs were the music of infernal sii-ens." The 
present degi'adation and disgraceful descent of the 
drama is all owing to the opposition of the pulpit I 
Can intelligent men be deceived by such a glaring- 
sophism? Clear it of its sun-oundings. and the sim- 
ple statement is sufficient to show its absurd and 
wicked fallacy. Yet, in this way it is sought to parry 
the force of the damaging admissions advocates of the 
theater are obliged to make. 

And now let us look at these admissions. They are 
that the stage is now degraded: that this degradation 
is avowed and shamelessly indorsed by Boucicault, a 
popular writer of plays, and by the manager of Drury 
Lane Theater — -one of the best of London: that it is 
a degradation that had its counterpart when Johnson 
and Byron deprecated and deplored it; and when the 
stage was the place for the orgies of satyrs and when 
its songs were the music of infernal sirens. The stage 
has a histoiy, then: and that histoiy is dark with the 
record of repeated and disgraceful degradation. All 
this is the confession of the fi'iends of the theater — its 
constant patrons and defenders. 



16 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

THE HISTORY OF THE STAGE. 

I am thus brought to consider the history of the 
stage — the rise and coui'se of dramatic performances. 
Surely, fi'om this we may gather some knowledge of 
its prevailing characteristics and some estimate of its 
value as a means of moral refoiin or rational amuse- 
ment. This historical review must necessarily be the 
briefest; and, through it all, let us carry the distinc- 
tion between the drama and the stage. The di'ama is 
a department of literatui'e and valuable as such. 
Shakespeare and the great masters of Grecian tragedy, 
no scholar would care to dispense with. " No ques- 
tion could be more easily decided," says Foster. " than 
whether it be lawful to write and to read useful and 
ingenious things in a dramatic form: but it is an 
altogether different question whether the stage is a 
useful means of entertainment and moral instruction. 
So different a question is it, that the stage may be as 
injurious as the drama is beneficial. A young man 
may wisely and consistently value the drama, reading- 
it and studying it with discriminating criticism, imd 
yet wisely and righteously denounce the theater. There 
are the excitement of scenic effects, the evil associations, 
the overwhelming appeals to the sense, the gloss put 



HISTORY OF THE STAGE. 17 

upon impurities, and very much else, making up the dif- 
ference. The study of anatomical plates for scientific 
purposes is quite another thing from the exhibition of 
those plates to a mixed assembly, some of whom may 
find in them a stimulus to the basest passions." No 
man of delicacy would even read the entire plays of 
Shakespeare in his own family. Then, agaiu% the 
attempt to realize on the boards what has been con- 
ceived and written, often degrades the very scenes and 
events represented. Even a Michael Angelo could not 
successfully paint the judgment scene, though the 
Bible describes it. Nor can we suppose that Biblical 
drama, in eight acts, called " The Eedeemer of the 
AVorld, or the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus 
Christ," recently sought to be put upon the boards, 
with all scenic attractions, in one of the theaters of 
New York, would have had any other effect than to 
degrade the Scriptural representation. Thanks to the 
indignant protests of a Christian public, that effort 
failed. Keeping in view, therefore, the distinction 
between the drama, as a department of literature, and 
the stage, as a place of theatrical performance, let us 
briefly look at the history of the theater. 

Dramatic representation had its origin among the 



18 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

Greeks, with a troop of bacchanalians, in rude and 
boisterous songs, interspersed with dances, conducted 
with a high degree of licentiousness, both in language 
and action. Then came Thespis, introducing tragedy. 
The stage is said to have been a cart, the chorus a troop 
of itinerant singers, and the actor a sort of mimic. 
Subsequently, iEschylus appeared, " who carried the 
Greek di'ama at once to nearly its highest perfection." 
He was followed by Sophocles, called the ancient 
Shakespeare, who introduced a third and even a fourth 
actor into his plays. Then came decline under Em'ip- 
ides, exhibiting degenerated taste and loose morality. 
The transition to comedy was easy, originating in the 
licentious sports of the villages, and popular in pro- 
portion as it was personal, abusive and low. The 
comedies of Aristophanes are an illustration at once of 
the " depravity of the poet and the libertinism of the 
spectators.-' His wit was coarse and vile — a mixture of 
birffoonery and positive filth. Theatrical exhibitions 
became a popular amusement among the Romans, just 
as they lost their stern love of virtue, yielded to lux- 
ury and grew weak and effeminate. The best author- 
ity states that the law of deterioration in dramatic 
representations has been illustrated among the Hin- 



HISTOTY OF THE STAGE. 19 

doos, even as among the Greeks. Connected, in their 
origin, with religious observances, they have invariably 
degenerated. The European stage is no exception. 
This grew out of " The Mysteries " of the middle 
ages, a sort of sacred drama performed by monks, in 
which the devil always played a conspicuous part. Of 
these, Hannah More says: " Events too solemn for 
exhibition and too awful for detail were brought before 
the audience with a formal gravity more offensive than 
levity itself." " Celestial intelligences, uttering the 
sentiments and language, and blending with the buf- 
fooneries of Bartholomew Fair, were regarded as 
appropriate subjects of merry-making for a holiday 
audience." This was the foundation of the modern 
British and American stage, which has risen only to 
degenerate; until now many of its exhibitions outrival 
in licentiousness and filth the darkest days of the 
drama, even on the confession of its friends. 

In China, theatrical entertainments are greatly pop- 
ular. But neither there nor in Japan are women 
allowed to perform. It is a disputed question whether 
women were ever even present in the ancient theater. 
It is undeniable that the actors were invariably men, 
and few in number, and vet these theatrical entertain- 



20 



A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



inents contributed to the downfall of the Grecian state. 
They had their origin in a corrupt state of morals, 
and they tended to deterioration. As it has been, so 
it is now, and shall be. Our early Congi'ess, in the 
sterling virtue of those days of the Republic, took 
action against the theater; but who imagines that in 
this time of widespread coiTuption and venality and 
licentiousness and crime, that Congi-ess could be led 
seriously to consider such a resolution ? History is all 
one way in testifying to the worthlessness of the 
stage, as a school of virtue or a means of rational 
and elevating amusement. The clear verdict of the 
])ast is that the theater is an institution, ^Uchich ha^^ 

WITHIN ITSELF THE SEEDS OF CORRUPTION, 

and which exists only under a laic of degeneracy/'' 
Respectable men have again and again gotten ashamed 
of its accumulating evils and more and more unblush- 
ing indecencies, and, from time to time in its history, 
announcements have been made of establishments 
opened as tit temples of the drama, with the expectation 
and purpose of maintaining a high intellectual and 
moral character. I tell you the simple truth when I say 
that, however sincere such efforts have been, thev have 



REFOUM IMPOSSIBLE. 



21 



invariably failed. Such is the nature of theatrical 
representation, and such is human nature, that deteri- 
oration is inevitable. The moral and religious por- 
tion of the community, except in a time of spiritual 
decline and degeneracy, cannot be generally persuaded 
to support the theater. Make it fit for them, and the 
majority of its present patrons would vacate it and 
seek the desired excitement elsewhere. Plays, to be 
popular, must be a representation of active passions. 
" Silence, patience, moderation, temperance, wisdom 
and contrition for guilt," it has been well said, " are 
no virtues, the exhibition of which will divert specta- 
tors." 

REFOKM IMPOSSIBLE. 

The stage, therefore, can never be made " a mirror 
of Christian sentiments and morals." Garrick, in the 
experiment, met with utter failure. This cry of re- 
form and this effort at reformation is no new thing. 
It has been tried over and over again. The centuries 
have heard of it. Under Cromwell and the Common- 
wealth — in those stern but pure times — (times for a 
long while railed at and lampooned as bigoted and 
boorish, but now deemed the glory of England) — in 
those stern but pure times, the theaters were deemed so 



'>:2 



A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



corrupting that they were closed. With the disso- 
luteness of morals that followed the Restoration, they 
were soon in full activity. Read Macaulay, if you 
want a picture of that era. " Tragic passion" gave 
way to " cold-blooded bombast," and, for " comic wit 
and fancy," was substituted " coarse licentiousness " 
— " an obscenity," says a recent literary critic, " so 
foul, so diseased, that it seems inconceivable that men 
could ever have borne to write, to listen to or to see 
such things." It was the age of such play- writers as 
Wycherley and Congreve. Macaulay says of Wych- 
erley: "The only thing he could furnish from his 
own mind in inexhaustible abundance was profligacy." 
Congreve was " the champion of the most shocking 
descriptions of vice." Leigh Hunt calls the superior 
fine ladies and gentlemen of Congi'eve's plays, " a pack 
of sensual busy-bodies like insects over a pool." Do 
you say these plays must have been condemned for the 
licentiousness of their genteel vulgarity? Not so. 
Gilded vice had its defenders then as now. Hardly 
another English author has been so praised by the men 
of his time as William Congreve. Dryden, the most dis- 
tinguished literary man of that day, ranked him with 
Shakespeare! And Pope dedicated to- him his Hiad ! 



REFORM EXPERIMENTS IN AMERICA. 



23 



It is no wonder that the English nation ere long- 
woke again to the immorality of the stage and won- 
dered that it had suffered irreligion and licentiousness 
to be taught openly at the public expense. Later, a 
committee of the British Parliament, after a full 
investigation of the subject, reported that the only 
way to reform the theater was to burn it down. And 
now, Mr. Boucicault and the manager of Drury Lane, 
London, avow and indorse the present degradation, 
and shamelessly declare their pui'pose to cater to it 
and perpetuate it by " Black Crooks,'' " Formosas " and 
the like. 

REFOBM EXPERIMENTS IN AMERICA. 

AVhat is the history of such reform movement in 
America? When the charms of a new and gorgeous 
edifice have worn away, and the novelty is gone, the 
first-rate house degenerates into a second and third 
rate, less and less care is had to please the aesthetic 
few, and finally the low. level of all the other boards 
is ]-eached, and the degraded popular appetite is fed 
with what is an offense to morals and an insult to 
intelligence. The standard drama is only now and 
then thrust in, to keep up a show of respectability and 
to secure the countenance and support of those who 



24 



•LAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



ai'e disgusted with spectacular nonsense aiid impuri- 
ties. This is the course of the theaters in our chief 
cities. It has been so in Philadelphia, to my certain 
knowledge. There each of the principal theaters 
originated in a throe of reform. The determination of 
the management to present only the higher class of 
plays in an artistic and wholly unexceptional manner, 
was published far and wide. But in every case, each 
theater that began with the pui'pose of utmost respec 
tability, in the use of the standard drama, soon catered 
to the degraded popular taste, with the cheap sensa- 
tional and the vile burlesque of the blondes. 

In New York, the same record has been made. 
Booth's Theater, that brilliantly garnished establish- 
ment, that was to be sternly held to the chaste and 
splendid exhibitions of histrionic art. has again and 
again had filth upon its boards. It was not long ago 
that I read in one of the best of the New^ York dailies, 
that Wallack's Theater the night before was the scene 
of " one of those pleasant festivals of thought and feel- 
ing, which, in their intermittent occiu'rence, keep it in 
jniblic affection and respect as the favorite theater of 
the land." "The audience was remarkable for its 
rf'iined and tasteful aspect and intelligence." " Such 



KEFORM EXPERIMENTS IN AMERICA. 25 

occasions,*' the writer goes on to say, " serve to refresh 
in the thoughtful public taste our interest in the affairs 
of the drama, which a cotemporary stage, overloaded 
with frippery and filth, and often grossly mismanaged 
by licentious and mercenary hucksters, has done very 
much to diminish or destroy." 

Now, what is this exceptional play, that, according 
to this writer, has fui'nished an intermittent festival 
of thought and feeling, and drawn together an audi- 
ence remarkable for its refinement, and is in such con- 
trast to the frippery and filth of a cotemporaneous 
stage? Why, this very writer describes it as an intri- 
cate web of intrigue, where two women love the same 
man; where a husband incriminates his wife, whom 
he has just led from the altar, and where there is" an 
appeal for sympathy with handsome feminine wicked- 
ness,*' together " with occasional equivoke," or double 
meaning. And when it comes to pass that in the 
favorite theater in the land, on an exceptional occa- 
sion of thought and feeling, at an intermittent spasm 
of protest against fi-ippery and filth, this is the kind 
of exhibition that is made upon the boards, I ask what 
kind of a place has it gotten to be for any respectable 
young man or woman? If this be done in the green 



26 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

tree, what may we expect in the dry? If this is the 
best to be gotten in the favorite play-house of the 
great metropolis, what must we expect and what do we 
get from like establishments elsewhere? 

HENEY IRVING. 

I am not ignorant of the experiment now being made 
in London. I know that Henry Irving, with all the 
instincts and convictions of a gentleman, and with 
grace and power of acting, perhaps, unrivaled to-day 
in the dramatic world, is undertaking to have a theater 
of unexceptionable morals. But I know, too, that it 
re(][uires all the histrionic ability and painstaking toil 
and expenditure and peerless gifts of his genius, to 
make that experiment even a temporary success; and 
that with his decadence his clean place will gi'ow foul, 
as inevitably as water will find its level. This con- 
summate actor recently gave an address before the 
Edinburgh Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, 
Scotland, on " The Stage as It Is," in which he said: 
" The stage is intellectually and morally, to all who 
have recourse to it, the source of some of the finest 
and best influences of which they are respectively sus- 
ceptible." And in saying this he expressly declared 



HENHY IRVING. " 27 

that he was ^' speaking not of any lofty imagination of 
what might be, but of what is, wherever there are pit, 
gallery and foot-lights." 

I face this statement with the facts of history. I 
appeal to the record of every one of these glittering and 
garnished establishments. I hold up in contradiction 
the efforts at reform that have so often been made and 
as often abandoned. I call to the witness-stand the 
director of the city prison in Paris, M. Bequerel, who 
says : " If a new play of a vicious character has been 
put upon the boards, I very soon find it out by the 
number of young fellows who come into my custody." 
I summon the New York Evening Post to testify — a 
paper conducted by no prudes or Puritans. In a recent 
editorial on " Om* Stage as It Is," it says: 

There has probably been a greater mass of meretricious 
rubbish set on the New York stage during the last ten years 
than during the whole of its existence. We do not, of 
course, refer solel}^ to pieces that appeal to the baser instincts, 
but to the whole body of sensational or emotional products — 
to the feverish slop of a French melodrama, etc. 

Now all this proves beyond all doubt that the refor- 
mation of the fheater is out of the question — that the 
ideal stage is simply an impossibility ! I say it again, 



28 



A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



fearless of sustainable contradiction, and supported 
by the record of the past and present, by the very 
nature of theatrical representations, and by the neces 
sities of the case, that the stage, as an institution, 
"^ hcts within itself the seeds of corruption, and it exists 
only under a law of degeneracy.'' 

EFFECT ON ACTORS. 

How can it be otherwise? Take the actore them- 
selves. How can they mingle together, as they do, 
men and women, and make public exhibition of them- 
selves as they do. in such circiunstances, with such siu'- 
roundings, with such speech as must often be on their 
lips to play the plays that are written, in such posi- 
tions as they must sometimes take, affecting such sen- 
timents and passions — how can they do this without 
moral contamination? That it is done, as an excep- 
tion, does not disprove the law of degeneracy. A Gar- 
rick and a Mi's. Siddons and some others of equal or 
approximate fame, and some others of far less reputa- 
tion, may sustain on the stage a moral character above 
reproach: but who can deny that the tendency of all 
theatrical engagement is strongly and sadly, and, alas! 
generally successfully the other way. Now. if the thea- 



EFFECT ON AUDIENCE. 



29 



ter be a school of morals, how does it happen that the 
teachers so seldom learn their own lessons ! How does 
it happen that these teachers so seldom take part in 
any moral enterprises when their stage di'esses are 
off? How many young men of clean, piu'e homes would 
cai'e to have their sisters tread the boards ! The point I 
make, is. that if to the actors themselves theatrical rep- 
resentation is injurious, tending strongly and almost in- 
evitably to immorality and corruption, placing them 
where we would be ashamed to have a brother or sis- 
ter, son or daughter, placed, and giving them a social 
ostracism, which only transcendant genius, like Booth's, 
or Kemble's, or Irving's, can overcome, then the insti- 
tution demanding that state of things, and making- 
necessary that moral exposure and social banishment, 
is inherently and essentially bad, and neither you nor 
I have a right, nor has any one else a right, to support 
it or countenance it. 

EFFECT ON AUDIENCE. 

But the evil does not stop with the actors. It 
extends to the audieace. What cannot be done with- 
out a tendency to moral harm, cannot be seen without 
a tendency to moral harm. Corrupt tastes are formed 



30 



A PLAIN TALK ABOTT TIIK THEATER. 



at the theater — false views of life ai-e inculcated, false 
standards of honor. The plain and sober and ordinary 
duties of life are not brought out at the play-house. 
Love is commonly represented as a romantic passion. 
Religion in its purity is too tame for the demanded 
excitements of the stage. What better can I say on 
this point than what ]Mi*s. More has said: 

It is generally the leading object of the poet to erect a 
standard of honor in direct opposition to the standard of 
Christianity : and this is not done subordinately, incidentally, 
occasionally, Imt worldly honor is the very soul and spirit and 
life-giving principle of the drama. Honor is the religion of 
tragedy. It is her moral and political law. Her dictates form 
its institutes. Fear and shame are the capital crimes in her 
code. Against these all the eloquence of her most powerful 
pleaders, against these her penal statutes — pistol, sword and 
poison — are in full force. Injured honor can only be vindi- 
cated at the point of the sword ; the stains of injured repu- 
tation can only be washed out in -blood. Love, jealousy, 
ambition, pride, revenge, are too often elevated into the rank 
of splendid virtues and fonn a dazzling system of worldly 
morality in direct contradiction to the spirit of that religion 
whose characteristics are charity, meekness, peaceableness, 
long-suffering, geiUleness and forgiveness. 

There is no quashing that indictment. And hence 
it is that even loose -and abandoned men. who abhor 



POSITIVE I^rMOHALITY 



31 



the religion anfl morality of the Chm*ch, take delight 
in and applaud to the echo the morality on the boards 
of the theater. I bring to the witness-stand the writer 
who edits the " stage " department of the Philadelphia 
Daily Press. He says: 

The gallery, though not always patronized bj- the most 
moral of om- citizens, invariably is thronged when the moral 
drama is produced, and the gentle youth who would pick 
your pocket without the slightest qualm of conscience, wildly 
applauds when virtue is triumphant over vice, and the heavj- 
villain meets with the just reward of his crimes. 

I need not ask you whether the morality getting 
that kind of indorsement is the morality commended 
of heaven; or, whether the morality thus presented 
and thus approved would be likely to elevate the 
character of those who witnessed it. and the general 
tone of society. You all know better. 

POSITIVE IMMORALITY. 

There ai'e other objections to the theater — important, 
and deserving notice; but I pass, to speak briefly and 
finally of this — the positive immorality of the stage — 
the openly, and, sometimes, grossly pernicious exhibi- 
tions which make it a teacher of vice. How few plays 
are acted which have not some form of immoralitv in 



32 



A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATKl!. 



them, and that are utterly free from impmity — that 
have not the oath, or the double-meaning, or the 
covert suggestion, or the lascivious gesture, insinuat- 
ing often what is not actually expressed. There is 
one whole class of dramas called " seventh command- 
ment plays," for the obvious reason that they deal in 
crimes forbidden by that Jaw. Macready, one of the 
celebrated English tragedians, would not permit his 
daughtei's to attend the theater. His judgment and 
affection as a father were in conflict with his tastes 
and interests as an actor. H!is habits, love of fame 
and desire of gain, bound him to the stage; but a 
regard to the welfare of his daughters prompted him 
to guard them against it. There is scarcely an evil 
incident to human life which may not be learned at 
the theater. If this be not so, how comes it about that 
we must have an expiu'gated edition of even the prince 
of dramatists, in order that his entire plays may be 
read aloud in a social circle composed of the two sexes ? 
If this be not so, what of the vast mass of plays put 
upon the boards of even our best theaters, some of 
which, in the very language of an enthusiastic 
defender of the drama, are " a murderous assault upon 
all that the familv-circle holds most holv and sacred?" 



POSITIVE IMMORALITY. 33 

If this be not so, why is it that some of the worst 
classes in the community are the constant patrons of 
the theater! If a man is known by the company he 
keeps, is not an institution known by the audience it 
draws? And, granting that there are respectable men 
and women in that audience, come to witness some 
admirable rendering of character, or to listen to some 
choice or elevating music, that is not the entertainment 
nightly drawing the crowd. There must be something 
answering to and gratifying the tastes of the depraved 
and dissolute and the immoral, to bring them so con- 
stantly to the play-house. And there is. Such char- 
acters are not seen regularly, and in any numbers, at 
the church, at the concert, at the lecture, at any place 
of rational amusement; but yon will always find them 
at the theater. The patrons of the grog-shop are the 
patrons of the theater. The patrons of the house of 
the strange woman are the patrons of the theater. 
The patrons of the gambling-hells are the patrons of 
the theater. And they go there because they find 
what they want there ; because their depraved appetites 
are whetted there. It matters not that others go, of 
different and far better standing. Those go because 
their tastes are met and catered to, managers conduct- 



34 



A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



ing their theaters as other people conduct their busi- 
ness, with a view of making money. If the theater 
were a school of morals, they would not go. If it 
were a popular pulpit and a virtuous social in- 
structor, they would not go. If it were a place 
of entirely innocent amusement, they would not 
go. They give wide berth to such things. In 
Paris, in the bloody days of the Eevolution, how was 
it? " "WTiile courts of justice were thrust out by 
Jacobin tribunals, and silent churches were only the 
funeral monuments of departed religion, there were, 
in Paris, no fewer than twenty- eight theaters, great 
and small, most of them kept open at the public 
expense, and all of them crowded eveiy night." 

NATURAL AFFILIATIONS. 

See, too, how the saloon and the grog-shop natm'- 
ally and invariably drop down at the doors of the 
play-houses. Is there no connection between them? 
Ah! my dear reader, sharing with me in the duties and 
destinies of life, is a warning necessary after all this? 
Need I bid you, in the name of morality and religion, 
and, as you value character and manhood, let the thea- 
ter utterly alone. But I hear it said, " God has 



NATURAL AFFILIATIONS. 35 

planted in my nature a taste for dramatic representa- 
tion, and it can be gratified at the theater; and I may 
go there when the higher plays are rendered by true 
talent, with great dramatic power, and be gratified and 
do no harm." That is possible; but is it all? "Julius 
Caesar " and Tennyson's " Queen Mary," Jefferson's 
" Eip Van Winkle," " Hamlet," "Macbeth "—in hear- 
ing these are you not doing far more than gratifying 
a proper dramatic taste? Are you not putting your- 
self where appeals may be made, and doubtless will 
be made, to your lower, as well as to your higher 
nature? The very after-piece put on the boards in 
the wake of the sublime tragedy you have gone to wit- 
ness may be a gross travesty of our holy religion; an 
indecent and insulting caricature of something pure 
and sacred. And the most of what is exhibited on 
that stage, month in and out, has in it that which 
tends to degrade and demoralize. Quips and jests 
and exposures are allowed and applauded there that 
would be deemed insulting in our homes. And you 
are the open and inevitable, though it may be indirect, 
patron of all this. For your money supports the insti- 
tution — it goes to swell the receipts of the house where 
these things are enacted night after night. And 



36 



A PLAIX TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



though, on the particular night when you go, nothing 
may appear to offend the strictest sense of propriety, 
yet, I ask you, if you have any right to gratify youi- 
taste at the expense of making yourself directly and 
knowingly a countenancer and patron of an institution 
whose common and most characteristic features are 
offensive to purity, to religion and to God? 

TAINTED AND VICIOUS. 

There the house stands, and it is largely given up 
to the wretched sensational plays, tricked up in the 
tinsel of cheap art. There vile burlesque and idealess 
buffoonery may be witnessed. Night by night scenes 
are enacted there of the grossest indecency and im- 
purity, suggestive of all uncleanness. You know, as 
well as I, the dreadful influence of all that. You 
know, as well as I, that every theater in this city is 
more or less given up to plays whose atmosphere is 
tainted and vicious. As one of the better class of these 
plays, take "Adrienne LeCouvreur," as rendered by 
Bernhardt. It is a play to which no modest man should 
take a modest woman. One who has examined it, says : 
" It is immoral by its intrigue, immoral by the maxims 
uttered by the actors, and immoral by the compromis- 



GILDING VICE. 37 

ing situations in which the principal personages find 
themselves at different stages of the piece." One of 
the theatrical press writers of Chicago, said of it: 
" The plot abounds in surprises and intrigues so thor- 
oughly Parisian that it is quite as well the words were 
in an unfamiliar tongue. The atmosphere of the play 
is fetid and unwholesome." If it be said that only a 
woman like Bernhardt, who is reported to be what 
social decency does not name, would take the part, 
let it be remembered that Modjeska has played it on 
the Chicago boards, and that Eachel, " the inimitable 
Rachel," made it historic by her gifted personation of 
its leading part. 

GILDING VICE. 

Here, then, is an institution — the stage, the theater 
— that is gilding vice; an institution that is making 
young men and women familiar with adulterous liai- 
sons, and at home with almost absolute nudity; an 
institution, that, since the advent of the " Black Crook," 
— which I very well remember was met with a kind of 
shock and general protest— has gone on and on, until 
now the bulletin-boards on our public streets flaunt 
the shameless exposure in the very faces of every 
passer-by, and the tiling is taken as a matter of course, 



38 A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

and not a voice is heard in remonstrance; an institu- 
tion that is frequently exhibiting " seventh comaiand- 
ment plays," for the delectation and incitement of our 
young men and women; an institution, that, in the 
very language of its defenders, is guilty of " a mur- 
derous assault upon all that the family circle holds 
most holy and sacred." But one day in the week, or 
one week in the month, or one month in the year — no 
matter as to exactness — all this is changed. The house 
is put in order, and, under the same management, 
with almost the same actors, in the same place, a play 
is brought forward divested of every trace of impurity, 
and without a hint or suggestion to which a respecta- 
ble man or woman coald take exception. What of it? 
Does not every instinct of our better nature and every 
voice of reason say: It is wrong to darken the door of 
an institution, three-fourths or nine-tenths of whose 
influence is pernicious and poisonous? 

What if the manager of one of these low concert 
saloons should build a splendid music hall, and gild it 
with every possible attraction, and behind it put a 
gilded brothel; and what if the exquisite melody and 
rhythmical flow and very thrill and passion of music 
and song were to be had in that hall every night 



GILDING YICE. 



39 



accompanied with those incidents and incitements 
adapted and designed to lure to the brothel behind it; 
and what, if one night in the week, or one week in the 
month, or one month in the year — no matter as to 
exactness — all this should be changed; and, under the 
same management, with the same orchestra and same 
chorus, with almost the same singers throughout, and 
in the same place, a concert should be given, exquisite 
and refined in its nature, suggestive of nothing evil, 
and as wholesome and inspiring in its effects as the 
sublime strains of " The Messiah? " What of it? Would 
you be found there? 

Well, now, I do not say, for I do not believe, that 
there is a brothel behind the theater; but I do say, 
fearless of successful challenge, there are sometimes, 
and often, scenes and situations and exposures and 
sugg-estions on every stage in this city, and on every 
stage in this land, tending and adapted to make pa- 
trons for and victims of the house of the strange wo- 
man. And the one dollar or three dollars given at the 
box office is just so much toward sustaining the estab- 
lishment where these things are allowed and encour- 
aged. 



40 



A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



FINAL APPEAL. 

Christians ! Christians ! remember this, I beg of 
you — you who have been baptized with prayer, and 
who profess to think something of the decencies of 
home and the purities of religion and the sanctities 
of a Christian profession — remember this when you 
are tempted to cross the threshold of a theater to see 
some splendid play — ^that your presence there is coun- 
tenancing and helping to support a place, an agency, 
an institution, that openly dishonors God by much 
that it gives to the public; that as openly caricatures 
the religion of your Lord; that, in this city, at least, 
openly tramples on His Sabbath with loud revelry and 
insolent scoff; and that suggests, if it does not exhibit, 
more or less that is morally leprous and impure. 

" Prove all things ; hold fast that which is good." 
Surely the theater does not bear this apostolic test. 
As an amusement, it is too unwarr antab ly expensive, 
if there were absolutely nothing else against it. The 
receipts of the New York theaters are greater than the 
expenses of the churches, of the schools and of the 
police, combined. And when just one kind of amuse- 
meut for a city costs more than to police it and educate 
it and teach it religion, it is a wicked and shameful 



FINAL APPEAL. 



41 



extravagance. But the expense of the stage is the least 
objection to it. It is a disseminator of evil. It has a 
false code of morals and a false standard of honor. It 
arouses sensibilities of a high sort only to dull and 
deaden them. It arouses sensibilities of a low sort 
only to have them clamorous for evil gratification. It 
has been to hundreds upon hundreds the outer circle 
of a maelstrom, sucking in and down to perdition. Its 
history proves that a radical reformation is impossible. 
It is hopelessly bad. 

Yogiing men, and young women, too, and readers all, 
I urge you, as one who speaks not without reasons, as 
one for whom the dramatic in action and speech hr.s 
a peculiar fascination, and as one who has felt the 
charm and witchery of it in actual experience, yet who 
is principled against indulgence at the price of mo 
rality and a pure manhood and womanhood — I urge 
you, in the interests of pure, sweet lives, in the inter- 
ests of sacred homes, in behalf of the Sabbath and of 
the Name that is above every name, shun the theater! 
" Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."" 



A Plainer Talk About the Theater. 



My " plain talk about the theater " has not been 
relished in certain quarters. Of course not. Smite 
any iniquity and it will hiss and spring and sting if 
it can. I purpose now, if possible, a plainer talk. 
There is crying need. of it. "A theatrical review" in 
the Inter Ocean, December 31, furnishes the occasion. 
It gives a list of the performances in the foui* leading- 
theaters of Chicago the last year. Let any one go 
down that list of a column and a half with any knowl- 
edge of the character of the plays and the players, 
and he will find it mainly a record of trash, vulgarity, 
and filth that more than justifies the severest things 
said in "A Plain Talk About the Theater," and that 
should make every thinking man and woman in this 



44 A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

city tremble at the effect upon public morals of these 
vapid, prurient, and often vicious exhibitions. 

At McVicker's the year was opened (January 4) 
with two weeks of Bernhardt in "Adrienne Lecou- 
^n'eur," " Frou-Frou," etc., and closed (December 24) 
with two weeks of Raymond in "Fresh." Of 
" Adrienne Lecouvreur," a theatrical press writer said : 
'• The plot abounds in surprises and intrigues so thor- 
oughly Parisian it is quite as well the words were in 
an unknown tongue. The atmosphere of the play i& 

FETID AND UNWHOLESOME.'^ 

Of '• Fresh," a press writer said : " It is unmiti- 
gated and unmitigable bosh from beginning to end. 
It is crammed full of the slang of the period^ 
gathered from the street, the saloon, the race- 
course — everything in fact. Some of the ladies' cos- 
tumes are rich and handsome, but rather short- waisted 
at the top." When such exhibitions begin and end 
the year, is it at all likely that the intervening months 
will be crowded with high moralities ? When a book 
opens with pages of "immoral intrigue" and "im- 
moral maxims" and " compromising situations," and 
closes with pages of "bosh" and "slang" and im- 



NOT A PALPABLE FALSEHOOD. 



45 



modest exposure, who will believe that the balance of 
it is an inspiration to everything that is sweet and 
pure and noble? 

And McVicker's Theater is first-class. Ex uno 
•disce omnes! 

Let me be more definite. I have gone over the 
plays of the four leading theaters for the three months 
of September, October and November, 1881, taking 
these months simply because they immediately pre- 
ceded the "plain talk." At Hooley's, thirteen even- 
ings were given to the so-called standard drama 
(Keene) and seventy-six evenings to trash. At Mc- 
Yicker's, twelve evenings were given to Miss Anderson, 
six to Joe Jefferson, twelve to Denman Thompson, and 
forty-eight to trash. At Haverly's, eighteen evenings 
to the standard drama (McCullough) and fifty-one to 
trash. At the Grand Opera, all the seventy-nine 
evenings to trash, unless " Patience " or the " Pirates 
of Penzance" may be otherwise regarded. 

NOT A PALPABLE FALSEHOOD. 

It won't do to call this another specimen of " pal- 
pable falsehood" or "deplorable ignorance" on the 
part of the pulpit, and writ'ten either by " a knave " 



46 



A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE TT3EATEB. 



or a " fool." Out of their own mouths shall they be 
condemned. A theatrical press writer in the Times 
said late in November last : " With an occasional 
exception, Chicago has been regaled all the season 
thus far with the thinnest sort of theatrical diet ;" 
"once in a long time an exception to this dull vacuity- 
appears ; " " but, nevertheless, trash of the most un- 
adulterated description has largely taken possession 
of the stage." 

I wish it were no worse. But to call the stuff thus 
put on the Chicago theater boards " trash" is not to tell 
half the truth. Trash may be clean, though vapid 
and shallow. It may be an insult to intelligence and 
an offense to taste, but not an affront to morals. But 
this trash of the theaters is all three. Very much of 
it is vile and vicious, appealing to what is base in 
human nature, and foul in its origin, exhibition and 
inspiration. Let me again make good my words by 
appealing to the record. The comments are from the 
leading daily press. 

At Haverly's: "Twelfth Night" — given twelve 
nights; Shakespeare "emasculated;" "a drunken 
knight and a foolish simpleton heroes of the play." 
"Patience," twelve nights; as given at Booth's, one 



FASCINATING, DEMORALIZING, LEGGY. 



4T 



of the chief aesthetic maidens again and again guilty 
o£ 

" OUTRAGEOUS INDELICACY," 

and the wonder expressed "why the manager of a 
respectable theater permits such an indecorous, dis- 
gusting exhibition." " Strategists," six nights — " a 
gigantic farce," based on these propositions: "It's a 
wise child that knows its own father; it's a stupid 
wife that doesn't know her own husband." " Michael 
Strogoff," twelve nights — " Feminines in scantiness of 
apparel were neither more nor less shapely than 
usual." 

At the Opera House: " Daniel Rochat," given 
three nights, characterized as " vile." " Felicia," 
eight nights — mother reveals her life of shame to a 
bastard son. " Mother and Son," six nights — " coarse 
and vulgar Madame Coterel." " French Flats," seven 
nights — " adaptation of an original play as nasty and 
unpleasant as it was possible for a French dramatist 
to put upon the boards." "Olivette," eight nights — 

" FASCINATING, DEMORALIZING, LEGGY," 

as rendered by Miss Lewis, noted chiefly for " The 
Lewis Fling," or "Katharine's Kick," which has 
"given her a national reputation." "Madame Fa- 



48 A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

vart," seven nights — " the questionable, or, rather, un- 
questionable, salaciousness of Madame Favart." " A 
good deal of decidedly suggestive dialogue." " To 
say nothing of the more or less shapely figures of a 
large number of young ladies;" "considerable economy 
in the use of toilet material ; " " the uncalled-for dis- 
play of feminine figui'es which runs through the 
whole evening, and in some junctures trembles along 
the verge of the positively shocking." 

At McVicker's: " All the Rage," twelve nights— 
"humor strained;" "wit coarse;" " ground- work 
flimsy," "introduction of cheap slang." "The 
World," twelve nights — " after the stock model of the 
spectacular;" stripped of "accessories of the carpen- 
ter, tailor and milliner, it would not live a week." 
" Member for Slocum," six nights—" compromising 
situations; " " a sport decidedly blas6; " said to be an 
almost literal translation of a French farce And 
these '<veeks at McYicker's were sandwiched with such 
Sunday performances as " Cuckoo," " Boccaccio," and 

" MEMORIES OF THE DEVIL ! " 

At Hooley's: " Birds of a Feather," seven nights 
— " What it needs is to be entirely re- written, without 



APPEAL TO THE LOWER ELEMENTS. 



49 



the retention of any feature of it as it is to-day." 
"The Amateur Benefit," seven nights — " Pretty Nellie 
McHenry is as jolly and as frolicsome as ever." 
" 49," eight nights — " One-half given to semi-pictorial 
representation; the other half made up of nondescript 
supposed to be slang of mining camp, embellished 
with drinking and gambling-house rows, and padded 
with occasional platitudes to tickle the upper circle." 
"Danites," six nights — "Strong points, kicking the 
Chinaman, and his ' denune,' and the expression ' in- 
fernal cuss.' " 

Such are the exhibitions given night after night in 
the four leading theaters before the men and women 
and youth of our city. Nor is even this all. Often 
interjected in these exhibitions are quips and jests 
and exposures and gestures meant to 

APPEAL TO THE LOWEK ELEMENTS; 

interpolations of " unprovoked and gratuitous profan- 
ity and double entendre" and vulgarisms, that are not 
down in the plays ! " 

These statements are not born of a heated clerical 
imagination. This is the voice of the daily press, go- 
ing all these months past unchallenged. It is the 



50 



A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 



press that speaks of this vile trash I have named as 
the " later spawn of lilts and kickshaws which an easy 
public has permitted to be paraded." It is the press 
that calls the present condition of the theater a " dis- 
graceful descent into the darkest ages of the drama."' 
It is the press that alludes to a " cotemporary stage 
overloaded with frippery and filth, and often gi-ossly 
mismanaged by licentious and mercenary hucksters." 
It is the press (New York Post) that says " there has 
probably been a greater mass of meretricious rubbish 
(interpreted as ' appeal to baser instincts,' ' feverish 
slop,' 'nauseous twaddle,' etc.) set on the New York 
stage during the last ten years than during the whole 
of its previous existence ! " It is the press (Chicago 
Times) that says " trash of the most unadulterated de- 
scription has largely taken possession of the stage." 
It is the press that says, " Twenty-five years ago such 
an exhibition as is nowadays nightly made in this class 
of amusements (modern comic opera) in the most mat- 
ter-of-fact way, would have gone nigh to landing the 
whole party 

IN THE POLICE STATION ! " 

But are there no clean plays!* Yes, there are 
clean plays and clean players. But they are like 



PLAYS MUST BK SENSATIONAL. 



51 



GratiaDo's " two grains of wheat hid in two bushels 
of chaff." Plays must be sensational to be effective; 
must be a representation of active passions to be pop- 
ular. There is a whole class of plays that turn on 
criminal passion between the sexes, while murder, 
abduction, marital infidelity, injured honor and re- 
venge abound in the drama. Even "Pendragon" 
hinges on adultery; and, pui^e as the character of 
Arthur is, it must have forsooth the foil of his wife's 
shame and dishonor. So the proof of Arthur's most 
honored Knight's guilt is found in the woods, and the 
Knight himself is caught in Arthur's wife's bed-rcom- 
Adultery is bad enough on trial before a court, where 
it is necessarily arraigned for punishment. But it is 
immeasurably worse in its demoralizing effects set 
forth on the stage, where the story of the iniquity is 
often told with voluptuous heat of illicit love, and 
amidst thrill of music and gorgeous scenic surround- 
ing. 

This is no new tljing. 

EVEK SINCE EURIPIDES. 

play- writers hav^ delighted in the representation of 
criminal and unnatural passions. It is true, villainy 



52 A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

is commonly punished in these plays, but the villainy 
is often given such dash and daring and bravado, and 
is so set round with attractions and is pursued with 
such utter abandon and intoxication of delight that 
many a youth is led to prefer the way to destruction 
and the devil, because the journey can be made in 
such a blaze of glory. Take " Led Astray" for exam- 
ple, and, though the crime is followed by the penalty, 
the whole tone and coloring show that "the »:.reatment 
is that of a hater of the penalty, and not that of a 
hater of the crime." 

Christians of Chicago, moral men and women, 
lovers of clean homes and pure, sweet lives, what do 
you think of all this? Look at the record! Face the 
facts! And judge ye! 

THE INDICTMENT. 

I charge that the theater is often " a murderous 
assault upon all that the family circle holds most holy 
and sacred." 

I charge that it strips young . women of their or- 
dinary attire, and exhibits them to the public gaze so 
clad that to the eye uf the audience they seem, and 
are meant to seem, almost naked! You do not need 
to be told why that is done. 



THE FILTHY AND THE VICIOUS. 53 

I charge that the shafts of wit flung across the 
stage are often feathered from very obscene fowl. 

I charge that the theater is the channel through 
which the filth and pollution of lewd and lascivious 
play- writers is poui-ed into the minds of young men 
and young women, thus poisoning the very springs of 
our social life. 

I charge that the great mass of what has been put 
upon the boards of Chicago's theaters the last year 
has been trash of the most unadulterated description, 
often passing into the realm of 

THE FILTHY AND THE VICIOUS. 

And off the hand-bills of the theaters and out of the 
mouths of theatrical press writers, I have brought the 
proof that these charges are true. 

To all this it may be said that these same wit- 
nesses testify to much that is excellent and praise- 
worthy on the theater boards — that these citations are 
"disjointed and disconnected utterances without ref- 
erence to the context." 

But I would like to be told how pm'ity on the stage 
justifies pollution, and what effect any " context" can 
have on 



54 A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

"PROrANITY," OR " DOUBLE ENTENDRE," 

or " immodest exposure," or " nauseous twaddle," or 
'' appeals to baser instincts ? " For instance, I have 
said a theatrical critic speaks of a certain play as ex- 
hibiting an " uncalled-for display of feminine figures 
which runs through the whole evening, and in some 
junctures trembles along the verge of the positively 
shocking." Can any " context," however chaste and 
pm'e, wash out that foulness or palliate that appeal to 
lust? When a man swears he swears, doesn't he? 
He may put reverent speech alongside his oath, but 
that " context " does not make it any the less an oath. 

Let us not be blinded to the real issue in this case. 
When a book opens with pages of immorality and 
filth and closes with pages of indecency, and is inter- 
larded here and there with oath and obscene jest, who 
will believe that moral and Christian men and women 
ought to be buying that book because some of its pages 
contain only pure thought and speech, and are even 
freighted with a heavenliness of matter. 

How long would Christian patronage be given one 
of our churches whose officers by any possibility should 
prevailingly fill its pulpit with Ingersolls, even though 
here and there they should pad the pulpit ministra- 



NOT AN INDIVIDUAL MATTER. 



55 



tions with an angel Gabriel? And if a Christian man 
denounced for its gi'oss infidelity the church, the 
Christian institution, that did this thing, and called 
upon all Christians never to darken its door, what 
kind of an answer would it be to say: " My dear sir, 
your assault is indiscriminate — you forget oui' inter 
mittent Gabriel." 

NOT AN INDIVIDUAL MATTER. 

This is not a question at all as to an individual 
actor or play, but as to an institution. The theater is not 
a man. And the theater, in the very language of theatri- 
cal press-writers, is" overloaded with frippery, filth, and 
often mismanaged by licentious and mercenaiy huck- 
sters;" "trash of the most unadulterated description 
has largely taken possession of it;" scenes of "out 
rageous indelicacy," "disgusting," " positively shock- 
ing," " demoralizing," are often on its boards; '' twenty- 
five years ago such an exhibition as is nowadays 
nightly made (in modern comic opera) would have 
gone nigh to landing the whole party in the police 
station." 

Where all this is true, it makes no difference what- 
ever else is true. Spirits are being soiled with un- 



56 



A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE THEATEK. 



cleanness; everything sacred in society is being as- 
saulted; passions are stimulated; lust is begotten, and 
candidates are being made for the house of the strange 
woman. 

What if it be also true that this dark programme 
of the theater is padded here and there with the so- 
called standard drama, to win the countenance and pat- 
ronage of the most respectable and decent. I do not 
need to be told that to some extent it wins them. But 
neither do you need to be told, moral and Christian 
men and women of decent and cleanly homes, thus 
drawn to see an exceptional play of high and chaste 
form and tone, that you are quoted and paraded as 
friends and supporters of the establishment — an es- 
tablishment three -fourths or nine-tenths of whose in- 
fluence is pernicious and poisonous. Your patronage 
goes to swell the receipts of, and to give countenance 
to, the house whose common and most characteristic 
features are an oftense to purity, to religion, and to God. 

Now while it would be utterly without warrant 
to assume that reputable patrons of the theater are all 
on the road to destruction, it is no assumption what- 
ever to say that their patronage is giving sanction to 
an institution that, throughout every year, is sending 



THE CRY OF RErOR3I. 57 

scores and hundreds on their way to destruction. And 
my appeal is to this class — and I make it again with 
all possible earnestness — to go not in the way of this 
evil thing. 

THE CRY OF REFORM. 

Now and then is heard a cry of reform. But a 
radical, permanent reformation of the theater is a 
phantasm — a dream. 

Rome issued edicts in the interests of theatrical 
reform, but the decline of the empire and the decline 
of the stage went on together. Goethe and Schiller 
joined their genius in a determined effort at reform in 
Germany, but Goethe was ingloriously dismissed from 
the charge of the Weimar Theater because he would 
not furnish vulgar dramatic entertainments. He came 
to see that he had been struggling vainly against the 
stream. Reform movements have been organized 
again and again in England, and again and again they 
have ended in defeat. Under the commonwealth, the 
theaters were at one time closed, but under the disso- 
lute reign that followed, they were opened again, and 
grew worse than ever. Hannah More, whom Garrick 
called " The Tenth Muse," wrote plays of a high char- 
acter that won warm coromeadation from the famous 



58 A PLAINER TALK ABOUT THE THEATER. 

men of her day. But, despairing of the reformation 
of the stage, she withdrew and renounced her dra- 
matic productions in any other light than as mere 
poems, her own words being that she did not " con- 
sider the stage in its present state as becoming the ap- 
peai'ance or countenance of a Christian.'' And so it 
has been evermore, for over two thousand yeai's, in 
every age, under every clime, by every agency. Solons, 
emperors, poets, actors, parliaments, managers, play- 
writers, ministers, statesmen — all have found, as they 
have sought to realize the ideal stage, that the ideal 
:stage is out of the question. It is out of the question, 
just as pm-e, chaste, public human nudity is out of the 
question — i. e., with men and women as they are now 
constituted. The nature of theatrical performances, 
the essential demands of the stage, the character of 
the plays and the constitution of human nature, make 
it impossible that the theater should exist save under 
a law of degeneracy. Its trend is downward; its cent- 
uries of history tell just this one story. If it were 
otherwise, surely its advocates and defenders should 
be able to point to one clean, chaste dramatic house 
that has stood the test of time without allowing filth 
on its boards. There is not one on earth — not one ! 



THE PLAY OF CRIMINAL PASSIONS. 59 

The actual stage of to-day — the stage as it now 
exists — is a moral abomination. In Chicago, at least, 
it is trampling on the Sabbath with defiant scoff. It 
is defiling our youth. It is making crowds familial* 
with 

THE PLAY OF CEIMINAL PASSIONS. 

It is exhibiting woman with such approaches to naked- 
ness as can have no other design than to breed lust 
behind the on-looking eyes. It is furnishing candi 
dates for the brothel. It is getting us used to scenes 
that rival the voluptuous and licentious ages of the 
past. Go to Naples, and look on the gathered proofs 
of Pompeii's profligacy and lust, if you would see 
whither we are swiftly tending. It is a startling ques- 
tion asked by one of the theatrical play- writers of the 
times : " To- what extent will a continued progress in 
the same direction take us in the next twenty-five 
years ? " To what extent, indeed ! Good citizens, is 
it not full time we caught the alarm at these assaults 
on decency with which now the very streets ai-e pla- 
carded? Is it not full time for every respectable man 
and woman to withhold countenance of the unclean 
thing,- and to enter indignant protest against its gross 
immoralities ? 



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